Frugal Feeds | Raw Diet Day 3

Raw Diet Day 3:

Today I weighed in at 154, a two pound loss. Not at all surprising since I haven't eaten much in the last few days. The morning started with nearly absent appetite but as the day went on I did eventually start feeling hungry.

For breakfast I had one banana.

For lunch I had two cups mixed lettuces with about 1/4 cup each of raw corn and green peas, and a bit of raw sauerkraut. A little bit afterward I had a glass of refrigerator yerba mate tea steeped with dried stevia leaves.

Around 4:00 I actually started getting hungry for the first time in many days. I had a mousse of raw cacao, coconut milk, coconut butter and soaked ground dates whipped until smooth--about a cups worth all told. That was yummy to be sure!

For dinner I had gado-gado again with a few different vegetables than yesterday. Tonight's gado-gado was composed of carrots, celery, red bell pepper, snow peas, purple cabbage, mung bean sprouts, cucumber, jicama, broccoli and cherry tomatoes on a bed of butter lettuce. It was enough for two large servings. The sauce from yesterday had lost some flavor so added fresh chili peppers, pureed. About a 1/2 teaspoon of that. It could of used more flavor still but it was good enough.

By this evening I do not feel any lingering of the head cold and my earache is non-existent although I do have constant ringing in my ear. That isn't a new thing for me, just hasn't been there for awhile. My left hand still doesn't hurt much and I still have energy even after a busy day. I am ready to do nothing for awhile so plan on watching a movie tonight. Everything else is pretty much the same.

Overall I would call today a very good day.

Frugal Feeds | Fresh Gado Gado

Tonight for dinner I was wanting some nuts with my salad and thought about making a dressing using some raw nut butter. When I lived in Indonesia I often turned to gado-gado as comfort food so decided to make a raw version of it out of the ingredients I had on hand. Gado-gado salad dressing is slightly thick and much more dressing is served on the salad than you would normally put on your dinner salad. Think of it a bit like a medium-thick gravy. This version doesn't resemble traditional gado-gado as much as it could, but I wasn't looking to duplicate that flavor so much as be inspired by it. If I wanted to capture a similar flavor of the traditional version I would use raw peanut butter instead of pecan, lime instead of lemon, coconut milk instead of water, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or more to taste) and 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar. But the following version is what I made tonight and I found it to be very good.

Fresh Gado-Gado Dressing

1/4 large Cucumber, cubed
3 Tablespoons Sweet Onion
1/4 Lemon, skin and flesh
1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 cup Raw Pecan Butter, unsalted
1/2 cup Water
2 pinches Sea Salt

Fresh Gado-Gado Salad

Cabbage, in bite sized chunks
1/2 Avocado, diced
Red, Yellow and Orange Bell Pepper slices
Sugar Snap Peas
Cucumber, sliced
Spinach
Mung Bean Sprouts

Place all of the dressing ingredients into a blender. Pulse until it is well chopped up and then turn up to the high setting and let it run for a minute or so. Taste and see if it needs a little more salt. Turn off and set aside.

Prepare the vegetables. Arrange on a plate in individual piles, like so, and top with the mung bean sprouts. Serve the dressing on the side. Serves two.

I think you could make this with any unsweetened nut butter and find it to be very tasty.